Here I round up 28 of my favorite free productivity tools. This first round of tools make your job as a virtual assistant a bit easier during the day.
Yugma – an online webinar tool, Yugma plays nicely with Macs and PCs. Paid subscription versions let you have more people consecutively on for your webinar, but the free version works nicely for small meeting or one on one meeting needs. You can pass the mouse to another individual on the fly, schedule meetings, annotate the screen and more. Audio is provided via a free conference calling-type service.
FreeConferenceCall – While we’re on the subject of free conference calling, FreeConferenceCall is still one of the most popular of this class of service. Instant issuance of a landline number to which your callers can dial and moderator features make FreeConferenceCall a popular choice.
The Basement Ventures – Another free conference calling service with features similar to FreeConferenceCall.
IWantSandy – Sandy, I love you. IWantSandy is a fantastic reminder service that allows anyone to have a personal assistant in their inbox. Although Sandy seems to be going through a few growing pains as of late (no different than Twitter, I suppose), I still love this service. I can text (via Twitter) or e-mail Sandy and have her remember items for a list, remind me of something at a future date/time, or just remember something until I ask her for it. IWantSandy also has a Google Calendar subscription feature, so you can subscribe to Sandy’s scheduled reminders via Google Calendar.
For me, stuff always seems to come to me in the car. That’s when I remember the grocery item I need to capture, the office supply I need, etc. I just send them to Sandy with a few shorthand keystrokes (or Jott them — keep reading…). One of the fun items I ask Sandy to maintain for me is my mantra. At a stressful moment, I ask for a reminder. No meditating while driving allowed!
LogMeIn – LogMeIn, let me count the ways I love thee. LogMeIn is free, works on both PCs and Macs, and allows remote access to computers. I’m a GoToMyPC fan, and LogMeIn is similar, but LogMeIn is better because it has a free version and because it supports both Windows and OS X. Paid versions offer additional functionality, but we get by just fine with the free version in our office.
Picnik – Great image editing on the fly, Picnik is rock solid. Who has time to spend waiting for Photoshop or Photoshop Elements to load when all you need is a simple crop? Now a plug-in with Flickr (keep reading…) as well.
Flickr – Flickr, now a Yahoo offering, is a fun, free way to share photos with family and friends. Lots of fun groups to check out, and lots of great images. Flickr allows you to create a Creative Commons License to let viewers know what images they may use and what images are copyright. Flickr has Picnik editing on the fly as a part of its offering, and many neat and creative ways for you to purchase or share your photos. Paid versions allow more uploads per month — for $29.95 a year, you really ought to just get a subscription.
SnipShot – Another handy online image editing application.
LetterMeLater – Need to send an e-mail reminder in the future? LetterMeLater is quite handy. I also love that LetterMeLater allows for me to add multiple e-mail addresses to my account — handy when as a virtual assistant you may have multiple e-mail addresses.
Time Cave – My first discovery in the future reminder category, Time Cave is a handy service that allows you to schedule future e-mails. You must set up separate accounts to support multiple e-mail addresses, however.
Remember the Milk – Remember the Milk is an online to do service that allows you to categorize your to dos. Has a Google Calendar plug-in.
Jott – Call an 800 number and leave anyone (or yourself) a message. That’s the premise of Jott. Jott offers 30 seconds for you to record your message, which is then transcribed and sent to your recipient. Jott’s transcription is not always perfect, so it’s great that when the Jott is sent, the recipient also get the audio file to fill in any blanks. I love that Jott also now allows you to Jott straight to your IWantSandy account as well as Google Calendar and a host of others.
Box.net – Box.net offers a free one gig storage account. To share, transfer or collaborate on files, Box.net is terrific. Box.net has an intuitive interface similar to Windows Explorer (or Finder, for Mac users). Share a file or a whole folder with one or many. Box.net also has tight integration with WordPress, iPaper and a host of others.
SendThisFile – Quick transfer of large files. Paid accounts offer additional services. Downloads expire after a certain number of days.
Google Desktop – PC Only. If you use a PC and wish your desktop searching was as fast and thorough as Spotlight is on the Mac, install Google Desktop. Google Desktop offers lightning fast searches and I really like that you can tell it to exclude certain password and private oriented folders.
Google Apps – Yes, there’s a paid version, but the free version is pretty handy, too. Calendar, e-mail, Word Processing, Spreadsheet — what’s not to love?
Gmail – The Cadillac of free e-mail. Gmail can be used as POP, IMAP or web mail. Great organization features including labels and filters. See my blog entry on Gmail organization here.
Thunderbird – Thunderbird is an e-mail alternative to Outlook or Mail.app and offers both a Mac and PC version. Thunderbird is lean, fast and easy to install and use. If you are a Mozilla fan, check out Thunderbird.
Camino – Mac only. A Mozilla project, Camino is an intriguing, Mac-only browser. Built on Gecko’s rendering engine, Camino is designed only for the Mac. If you are frustrated with Safari (and I get there sometimes), check out Camino.
Firefox – Firefox offers both a Mac and a PC version of its browser. Firefox version 3 has just been released. If you can’t deal with IE anymore, give Firefox a try. (BTW, Firefox has a PC only “render as IE” plug-in for those times you need to see how something looks or behaves in IE. Learned about this one from Eric – thanks Eric.)
Sidenote – Mac only. I just wrote about Sidenote yesterday — it’s a great freeware app that unobtrusively stands at the ready to capture your quick notes. Click here to read my more detailed review.
iClip – Mac only. Another quick note taking app for the Mac.
Evernote – Wow — Evernote is really cool! Evernote plays nicely with Macs and PCs. Create, clip, and share notes on the web, on your phone or on your desktop and see them everywhere. Learned about this one from a St. Louis colleague years ago when it was still PC only. A recent visit to the Evernote site was a great surprise when I learned of Evernote’s new additional functionality.
WordPress – Great free blogging service. Also a great place to grab an API key. Prefer to install WordPress on your own host? Can do — just use a one click install from your host or head over to WordPress.org for the download.
Blogger – Another great free blogging service, owned by Google. Get up and running with just a few clicks of the mouse. Now offers you the option of purchasing a domain from Blogger to have that perfect blog address (or the instructions on how to add a CNAME record to your domain from your registrar’s control panel).
WetPaint – Project management, wiki style. Build a community around what you love. Easy to set up and free to use.
AVG Anti-Virus – PC only. My favorite anti-virus application for PC users is still free. There is no excuse for not protecting your system when free protection is so easy to download and install. And, Mac users who are running Windows in Parallels, VMWare Fusion or BootCamp, AVG is a great choice for projecting your Windows guest operating system.
AirSet – Balance calendars, contact management and more for all the hats you wear: home, work, volunteer, ball team, etc. My colleague Kelly swears by Airset.
This first round up of freebies is a great start to helping a busy virtual assistant, entrepreneur or small business owner stay productive without breaking the bank. What are your favorite productivity freebies?
Image Peanut Butter Cup Heart by Flickr user Bob.Fornal
About the author: At Your Service Cincinnati principal Nora Rubinoff’s core virtual assistant services include social media management, WordPress support, online reputation management, project management, customer relationship management, customized e-mail marketing campaigns and productivity enhancement. Nora is a Mac and PC specialist. Nora is enthusiastic about architecting solutions that enable clients to make more out of their business day.
Nora is a recipient of the Karen S. House Award for Regional Collaboration as well as the Women of Excellence Award, several state and local government proclamations and holds the IVAA EthicsCheck™ certification. Nora is a past board member for IVAA and serves on several community advisory boards. Read more from this author
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Hi there, I work at AirSet and thanks for the shout-out for our product!
I like the imagery of AirSet helping out with “all the hats you wear” for all the different groups that you may be a part of. In fact, we want to be the provider of a “Shared Group Computer” to every single group out there!
Sincerely,
Sherrie
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